The Effects of Coupling IT and Work Process Strategies in Redesign Projects

Victoria L. Mitchell and Robert W. Zmud
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Victoria L. Mitchell: Department of Accounting and Management Information Systems, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210-1144
Robert W. Zmud: Michael F. Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019

Organization Science, 1999, vol. 10, issue 4, 424-438

Abstract: Organizational adaptation to competition often means inventing or adopting a process innovation and the daunting challenge of implementing it. Increasingly, process innovations rely on the capabilities embedded in an organization's IT infrastructure. Successfully implementing an IT-enabled process innovation depends largely on how a project's IT and work process designs fit and evolve with this IT infrastructure. However, little empirical research guides the formulation of IT and work process strategies. This study addresses the question: How does the degree of coupling between a redesign project's IT strategy and work process strategy affect project performance? Data collection utilized a multistage research design employing comprehensive phone interviews and matched surveys among three sets of respondents (project managers, IT managers, and process users) across 43 process redesign projects in the health care industry. Our findings indicate project performance improves with tightly coupled IT and work process strategies when implementing process inventions, and with loosely coupled strategies when implementing imitations.

Keywords: IT-Enabled Redesign; Process Innovation; Coupling; IT Strategy; Redesign Strategy; Project Planning; Project Uncertainty; Project Performance; User Satisfaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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